The present invention relates to a foot actuated wheel brake for shopping carts or other wheeled equipment, and more particularly, to a positive locking and quick release foot actuated wheel brake for selective braking engagement of a rotatably mounted wheel on a shopping cart or other wheeled equipment.
Numerous wheel braking devices have been developed for engaging a wheel in various wheel carts and equipment to stop the movement of the equipment. In most cases, the brake devices are designed for use only on a single wheel since by stopping the rotation of a single wheel, the entire wheel cart can be immobilized. Some typical examples of brake devices are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,572,548; 2,695,683; 2,709,828; 3,571,842 and 3,860,992. The wheel brakes shown in these patents, as well as many other designs which have been constructed to address the problem, disclose useful features and constructions, although they have found limited use in shopping carts. In the early 1990's, there have been no substantial inroads of prior art wheel brake devices in shopping carts.
There are millions of shopping carts used in the United States and other foreign countries; however, at the present time, the foot actuated wheel brake has not been incorporated in such equipment, for several important reasons. These include the fact that such wheel brake devices have not been designed with both the consumer and store owner in mind. That is, prior art wheel brakes have not been constructed so as to be both user friendly to the consumer, as well as to being economical to the store owner. A further reason is that such prior art wheel brake devices have not been easy to use when they do not provide a positive locking and unlocking engagement of a wheel on a repetitive basis over a sustained period of time. As a result, the many problems associated with shopping carts remain.
These problems include the difficulty of loading a car from a shopping cart or trying to find a place to leave the shopping cart, after use. Almost everyone has experienced the difficulty of unloading groceries or other products from a shopping cart into a car. Without a wheel braking device, the shopping cart can easily roll away, and this requires the user to somehow hold on to the cart, while unloading it. Consumers are used to holding the shopping cart with their feet or holding the cart with other parts of their bodies against the cart, while unloading the contents of the cart into a car. This particular problem is more than a frustrating experience because the shopping cart could easily roll away and damage the user's car or other cars nearby, as well as the cart itself.
Injury to other people is a related problem with runaway carts. For example, shopping cart injury is one of the leading causes of injuries to children. Thus, the problems of a runaway cart may create frustrating experiences during use, but also impose serious risk or exposure to both the property of others and bodily injury to users.
Runaway shopping carts have been clocked at speeds exceeding 30 m.p.h. in high winds. As will be appreciated, carts travelling at such high rates of speed can cause serious injury to both pedestrians and motorists. During periods of high winds, damage to vehicles also increases, because the carts can become easily dislodged. Damage to the carts, resulting in repair and/or replacement by the store owner, is a continuing problem. A store owner may also be faced with increases in insurance premiums and deductibles. Because repair of minor shopping cart damage can cost $200.00 or more, the store owner's insurance and deductibles are typically not sufficient to cover the cost associated with repairing damage to vehicles and the carts.
Following use of the shopping cart, the user looks for a place to leave the cart where it will not roll away. Typically, cart corrals have been developed for storing and nesting shopping carts after use. While users are expected to position the shopping cart in the cart corral after use, for a variety of reasons, many shoppers do not use cart corrals. As a result, this creates another potential runaway cart problem where inclines and/or high winds cause the cart to move to an unwanted location.
The foot actuated wheel brake of the present invention has been constructed to overcome all of the aforementioned problems that are primarily associated with shopping carts, while enabling nesting of shopping carts. Additionally, the foot actuated wheel brake of the present invention can also be used on other types of wheel equipment, as may be desired.